NOW on PBS

NOW on PBS goes off the air with not just a look back at our most memorable moments, but a mission to leverage these eight years of investigation and insight into lasting inspiration. In the special, NOW examines economic hardships and innovative solutions, the human faces behind the health care fight and other political battles, environmental crises both here and around the world, and more 21st century issues that defined and changed us. NOW on PBS dedicates this last show, as it has every show, to the issues that matter. Because -- now, more than ever -- they still do.

NOW on PBS has been covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for as long as we've been on the air. In that time, we've recognized that there's much to these conflicts than be covered by short segments and passionate punditry. In fact, our body of work -- which includes being embedded with U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, meeting soldiers' families in Texas, taking fire in Iraq's Anbar Province, and seeing how we treat wounded veterans back home -- shines a new light on human costs of war, and the price we pay going forward. In NOW on PBS' second-to-last show ever -- we take a look back at Iraq and Afghanistan to hopefully reveal insight about the dangerous and tricky road ahead, and how our leaders and soldiers should be traveling it.

The NOW broadcast series is ending -- the show will go off the air in just three weeks. NOW looks back on eight years of in-depth investigative reporting to examine what's been uncovered and accomplished, as well as what still needs to be done to preserve and enhance our democracy. Is true investigative journalism disappearing just when we need it most? Compare past to present through our NOW on PBS lens, and decide for yourselves.

The national economic disaster hit the city of Braddock Pennsylvania like a wrecking ball. But Braddock Mayor John Fetterman -- dubbed "America's Coolest Mayor" by The New York Times -- is taking very unconventional approaches to reinventing the town and re-inspiring its residents. Home to the nation's first A&P supermarket and Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill, Braddock is being revitalized with new youth and art programs, renovations of abandoned real estate, and bold plans to attract artists and green industries. NOW sits down with Mayor Fetterman to learn how the 6'8" 370-pound political novice is trying to turn his town around, and if other devastated communities can and should follow his large footsteps.

The number of inmates in American prisons is outpacing the system's ability to hold them all. In one startling example, California prisons hold well over 50,000 more inmates than they're designed for, even though the state has built a dozen new prisons in the last 15 years. One of the biggest reasons is rampant recidivism. NOW goes inside an Illinois prison that may have the answer to California's problems. With its innovative plan to keep released inmates from coming back, the Sheridan Correctional Center is trying to redefine "tough on crime" by being the largest fully dedicated drug prison in the country. The approach involves aggressive counseling, job training, and following the convicts after they get out. Can their novel approach keep convicts out of jail for good?